*Spoilers included in this review*
The Hunchback of Notre Dame II
Directed by Bradley Raymond
Starring Tom Hulce, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Haley Joel Osment
Remember how I said maybe part of the reason Pocahontas II was made was to give Pocahontas the standard Disney-ending, complete with handsome prince-type character? Well, The Hunchback of Note Dame II was DEFINITELY made to give Quasimodo the standard Disney-ending, complete with beautiful princess-type character.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame definitely doesn't get the credit it deserves, and has always been overshadowed by more popular films from the Disney Renaissance period, like The Lion King and Beauty & The Beast. It's a great animated film, and one of my favorites. It's sequel, not so much.
Quasimodo (Hulce) has been fully accepted and integrated into Parisian society. The Festival D'Amour (Festival of Love) is approaching, and Quasimodo wonders if there's someone out there to love him. A circus comes to town, led by a wicked conman named Sarousch (Michael McKean). He's out to steal a famous, jewel-crested belle named La Fiedele from Notre Dame. He sends his assistant Madeline (Hewitt) to case the joint. She runs into Quasimodo, they hit off, but she is frightened by his appearance. Personally, I don't know what her deal is. Especially when this little…guy, was hanging around her boss the entire time:
Anyway, you can pretty much guess where the story goes from there. Slowly but surely, she starts to fall for him, but she still has her ties to Sarousch and his plot, eventually she'll be exposed, they'll have a fall-out, then they'll make up, typical romantic-comedy bull.
Let's discuss this whole "Quasi gets the girl" angle for a bit. I understand maybe audiences were upset Quasimodo and Esmerelda didn't get together in the first film. It's one of the ways the film stays true to the Victor Hugo novel (For those of you that don't know, the original novel is far more darker than the Disney adaptation, so obviously there were a few liberties taken). You could say, "Well if they changed so much from the book, why couldn't Quasi get the girl too?" Well to that I say, why not?
Stepping away from the book, let's look at the Quasimodo we're presented with in Hunchback. This isn't a character desperate for love. This is a character who wants to get out of his home/prison and explore the world. By the end of the film not only does he accomplish this, he discovers, as an old trailer for the film states, "the magic within himself".
Story-wise, it's not a huge deal for this guy to find a girl. Sure, it's nice to see him find one, and it's nice of Hunchback II to give its younger audience the message that there's someone out there for everyone. Well, Disney did another, much better film, that carried that same message…called Beauty & The Beast.
Wanting to give Quasimodo a girlfriend isn't a good enough reason for this film to exist, and the whole "steal the bell" subplot doesn't do much to buffen up this scrawny script. The film barely hits the one-hour mark. Not to mention the film does a lot of treading on what Hunchback did. Quasimodo goes through another "I'm not good enough" episode and it hurts to watch. Gypsies/circus/street performers, which were fighting unjust persecution in Hunchback, are bad guys here. Then on the flip side of that is Pheobus, who was intelligent and non-prejudice, is now dense and suspicious of these people.
The animation is simply not good. It pales in comparison to that of Hunchback's. There are moments where they try to recreate shots from the first film, and it just doesn't work. Quasimodo, who was drawn rough on the edges but easy on the eyes, does not look good at all here. At some points he resembles a melting Peter Griffin, but maybe that's too harsh. The songs fail to reach the emotional heights of the ones from Hunchback, but "Ordinary Miracle" is a nice little number. Sarousch is not a compelling villain, and unworthy to hold Frollo's giant hat. In fact, it's a little weird how much he fawns over himself in the film…
But…there is some good in this film. All the returning cast members do a good job, and you can tell they still care about these characters. More importantly, you still root for Quasimodo and connect to him, and I think a lot of that is due to his voice actor Tom Hulce. You do want to see him get the girl. Jennifer Love Hewitt does fairly well as Madeline, and while her and Quasi's "flirting" does get kind of annoying, you still want to see them get together. One more bad note, Haley Joel Osment as Pheobus and Esmerelda's son Zephyr is the most annoying thing ever. That is all.
Hunchback of Notre Dame II doesn't do enough to justify its existence. If this were an hour-long series finale to a Hunchback of Notre Dame animated series (Thank God there was never one of those), maybe audiences could have passed better judgement. But it's not, it's a direct-to-video sequel with weak animation and a weak script, to an animated masterpiece.
I haven't seen every Disney sequel, believe it or not, and I'm sure there are worse ones out there (I hear Fox & The Hound 2 is a midquel about Todd and Copper joining a band. Ugh.) If I took the time to watch them all, and do a "Top 10 Worst Disney Sequels", I honestly think this one would end up lower on the list. Unfortunately, that's still not enough for me to recommend a viewing of it.
Oh, one more thing…
It escaped imprisonment?!?!? Five buck says if there was to be a Hunchback 3, that little Gollum wannabe was going to be the villain….*shudders*
No comments:
Post a Comment